BLOCKED
He laughed. Then added another sticky note:
Get 5 new SIM cards in my name
————————————————————
He rang her doorbell and stood back, strangely nervous. He had never been around babies more than a polite smile or a wave. And here he was meeting her niece… grand niece, for a babysitting afternoon. He knew he wouldn’t be changing nappies or anything… but she loved MM. He would be tested, at least subconsciously, on how well he engaged with her.
The door pulled open amid laughter and shrieks. He peeped through the crack because whoever had opened the door had already run off.
“MMmmm!” Ritu’s laughter was ringing, slightly less louder than the other set of giggles. Nilay stepped in warily, glancing around the bright sunny house. And the two girls crawling one behind the other. His entire body lit up. Ritu was crawling behind the tiny toddler, and stretched out in time to grab her before she went completely under the coffee table. He winced.
“Hi,” she turned, her niece under her arm, locks of hair escaped from her ponytail and messed around her face. “Sorry you had to wait.”
She got to her feet with the baby under her arm like a ball, wiggling and chortling. Nilay held out the bunch of sunflowers, this time tied together not with a makeshift twig but with a pristine white ribbon. And he had done it right again, because Ritu’s face lit up, even more than it already was. She reached for the flowers but MM was faster.
“No! You can’t eat them!” She tugged them out of her mouth when Nilay pulled out the smallest sunflower he had hunted for and held it out to the baby. Her big, brown eyes, so like Ritu’s, met his. And took his breath away. Had Ritu been like her? Looked like her? All wild curls and innocent eyes?
She grinned up at him with two teeth on her lower gums and one on the upper, and he felt like he had conquered the Everest. Before he could even digest the thrill, she pounced from Ritu’s arms into his, attacking the sunflower. Nilay chuckled, letting her have it. But she still didn’t relent and he found her released into his hold.
“How to hold her? She is moving so much…” he tightened both his arms around her. “She is so tiny…”
“She won’t fall, she knows how to hold you,” Ritu responded, boosting her up to his shoulder. She was right. The baby’s arms came around his neck just as he hoisted her higher. And that instinctive trust made something in his own heart melt.
“Googooogagaaa…”
“What’s that?” He asked.
“That’s her name for flowers,” Ritu responded.
“Really?”
“Or at least, that’s what she babbles when she sees flowers, so we think it means flowers. It’s one of her favourite sounds to make these days.”
“Then this googoogaga is for you,” he tickled the tiny sunflower over her cheek. She opened her mouth to bite into it when Ritu snatched it away. “No, MM. Nilay! How can you get flowers for a baby?”
“She likes it!”
“She wants to eat it.”
“She should know not to eat it. She is not a newborn.”
A tiny hand tugged at his beard and it was fucking painful. He winced. When he glanced at the baby though, she was giggling again with those three front teeth, her curls all over the place. He playfully narrowed his eyes and made a groaning sound and she did it again, falling face-first on his chin in glee. This was the sickest, most exhilarating high he had experienced. He cradled her close. He was shocked at how easy it was, to hold her, to let her do as she pleased, to feel like his chest was opening up when her tiny sounds penetrated it.
He glanced up and Ritu’s gaze was trained on them, soft, smiling… surprised. Maybe just as surprised as him. Without even realising it, she was holding her sunflowers close to her chest, her hair still all over the place. And he couldn’t help it.
Nilay reached out and smoothened the wisps away from her face, tucking them slowly, one by one, to prolong the moment. She did not move, holding his gaze. And then the baby in his arm began to wiggle.
“What?” He panicked.
“Let her down, she is bored.”
Nilay carefully set her on her feet on the floor but she immediately thumped to her bum. “Oh fuck, sorry, sorry, sorry… baby, you got hurt…?” He crouched for her, then gaped in shock as she turned and broke into a crawling run.
“She is not hurt, right?”
“No, she wants you to give her chase.”
